


Strength to Arise

by lazaefair



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Futurefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 15:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6158770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey and Finn, and the arc of the universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength to Arise

It comes down to planet-by-planet fighting in the end.

Years spent nibbling at the First Order’s boundaries, harrying supply lines and blowing up factories, growing into countless infiltrations on hundreds of planets, inserting teams to spread counter-propaganda and foment rebellion. Thousands of smuggled holovids and datachips, bearing millions of words and images that boil down to the simplest of messages: We Would Be Free.

This is how it ends: Resistance forces drop out of hyperspace within orbiting range of key First Order planets Yusneon, Kayruta, Cavis, Techanov, Skora, and Henia. Backed by the remnants of the New Republic fleet, the Corporate Sector fleet, the Corellian Sector fleet, the Hapes Consortium, and ships from countless worlds throwing in their lot against the First Order, they commence heavy orbital bombardment, followed by insertion of hundreds of thousands of ground troops and mobile heavy weapons units to storm the capital cities and take control of infrastructure. 

Simultaneously, a significant naval force tracks the First Order fleet deep into the Unknown Regions to take on the _Finalizer,_ the _Imperator,_ and the _Cobra._ Among the vast New Republic and Mon Calamari capital ships and their thousands of fighters flies a small, cloaked shuttle. Threading easily through sheets of laser and missile fire, it lands undetected in a small hangar bay on the _Finalizer._ Two figures emerge, both cloaked and hooded, and slip through a doorway without raising any suspicion among the personnel in the hangar. 

Nearly two kilometers away on the bridge, Kylo Ren jerks upright.

But before all of that happens: there is a room.

Dank and drafty, it’s one room of hundreds set up in prefab barracks, clustered together on the windswept surface of the latest Resistance base planet. Finn sits on his bunk, turning a small metal tag over and over in his hands, dressed in commando green, his gear piled at his feet. He looks up when the door opens.

“She gave one to you, too?” Rey sits down on the bunk, tucks herself into his side. He automatically drapes his arm over her shoulders.

“Titanium alloy, ident chip, tracking beacon,” Finn muses. “Leia really doesn’t want to lose us.”

“We’re family,” Rey agrees. Finn hums an assent. It’s their mantra. 

“I can’t believe it’ll be over in a few days.”

Rey shakes her head. “It’s never over.”

“What do you mean?”

“Luke and Leia thought it was over, when they killed the Emperor. Leia told me the celebrations on Endor went on for days.” She spreads her hands. “Look where they are now.”

“So we won’t make the same mistakes.” It’s not that simple, Finn knows, but he has to believe it. Or he won’t walk out of this room, and considering he’s a newly-minted officer in the Resistance, that would not end well. “We’ll keep a close watch on them after they surrender. Extend mercy to the ones who’ll take it. We’ll be fair.”

“The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” Rey says, sing-song.

“What’s that from? Another Jedi saying?”

She shrugs, jostling his arm. “Poe quoted it at me once. I think some Old Republic philosopher said it.”

Finn smiles. Rey’s warmth seeps through his bones, chases away the chill of this nameless planet. It’s funny, because the Jakku native is always cold and complaining about it. “When this is over,” he flashes a grin when she gives him a look, “yeah, I know, I mean when this particular tiny inconsequential arc of the universe is over, I want to find somewhere nice and sunny, with an ocean, and lie on the beach, and drink from coconuts.”

“What’s a coconut?”

“I don’t know. I think they’re some kind of seed, I heard Snap and Jessika talking about them. Jessika said they grow in the southern hemisphere of Naboo.”

Rey scrunches her nose up. “How do you drink from seeds?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“We’ll figure it out. I’m coming with you.”

Finn kisses her temple. Whatever else happens in the next few days, they’ll have this, at least. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“You can’t hoard all the fun to yourself.”

“Wasn’t planning to. We can invite Poe, too.”

“And Snap, and Jessika, and your Pathfinders, and the other pilots. But only for a few days.” She looks at him, sly. “I want you to myself for a while.”

He doesn’t _say_ it, but she must pluck it from the surface of his mind, because she sticks her tongue out at him. “Jedi non-attachment can go to blazes.”

“Passion, yet serenity,” Finn intones in solemn imitation of the wise Jedi master that he is not. Rey shoves him onto the bed for his trouble.

_(he does not ask: will you kill him?_  
_she does not respond: i don’t know - maybe)_

“See you on the other side, buddy,” Poe’s voice crackles over Finn’s personal comm. Crammed into a troop transport with his commando teams, he can hear starfighter engines revving up, row by row. The unearthly roar bounces off the cavernous hangar walls of _Home One._

“Come back to us after you’ve racked up another half-million kills, yeah?” Finn returns, moments before General Organa’s voice comes down the ship-wide line. 

“Red, Blue, Cobalt, Dagger, you are clear to launch. May the--” 

“--Force be with you, Rey.”

“May the Force be with you, Master,” she says, and this should be good-bye, but it isn’t. They sit facing each other, hands clasped tightly. There’s a long moment before Rey can make herself let go to start ignition sequences. They’re seconds from launching out of _New Liberty_. 

In the secret part of her mind permanently attuned to the smallest threads in the fabric of the Force, she can already feel his presence: Kylo Ren.

*

 

And then: war.

 

*

Helmet off, his voice and face broadcast clear across billions of comms and monitors and relays, General Leia Organa at his side, Finn looks out over the smoking ruin of Henia’s capital city and says: “The First Order has no power here.”

Robes scorched, her hands slippery with sweat and blood, her eyes aflame, Rey stands astride Kylo Ren’s body in the smoking wreck of of the _Finalizer_ and says: “You have no power here.”

“I cannot die,” Kylo Ren snarls, without his lightsaber, without his hand, without hope. “You could never fathom the power of the Dark Side. I will not die.”

“True power lies in control of self, control of your destiny. You had a choice.”

Kylo Ren tilts his head back to meet her gaze, and there is nothing of Leia, of Han, of the Light in him. “If you kill me, you will fall, and the dark will be victorious in the end.”

“I don’t think so,” Rey tells him, almost gently, and brings her lightsaber down.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for JediPrompts' Finn/Rey Week challenge. Prompt: Power.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr!](http://lazaefair.tumblr.com/)


End file.
